Barbecue is everywhere and in all different meat and poultry forms and sauces, but it all starts with low-and-slow or grilled. It’s no surprise barbecue ranked in the top five perennial favorites of the nearly 1,300 chefs surveyed for the National Restaurant Association’s What’s Hot 2017 Culinary Forecast. A quarter of these chefs even labeled barbecue a hot trend.
Barbecue items, including barbecue sauce, are found at 59 percent of restaurants, reports Datassential, in Chicago. This has held steady since 2005 with little decline or growth.